What's Good Dough?

We talk with Christina and Ryan, the owners of Pizza Squared in SF, CA . They are the awesome husband and wife team cranking out Sicilian and Detroit Style Pizza. Learn about how they built their restaurant in a newly developed building and the issues that come with that. We also talk about how they balance multiple restaurants and a growing family.

"Juneteenth is a reminder that we must continue to engage in self-examination, to educate ourselves, and to demonstrate respect and allyship to all we encounter both in our personal and professional lives." - Dr. Wakayama.

Find out more about this power couple!

@PizzaSquaredSF

Pizza Square San Francisco

Address: 885 Brannan St B2, San Francisco, CA 94103

Phone: (415) 525-3861

Full Transcript

Christina: San Francisco is an animal and a beast in itself to open up a restaurant. It's very, very difficult. I think after doing this, we built it from the ground up. We would never do that again in a brand new building.

Eidref: Thank you so much for tuning in to the What's Good Dough podcast. I hope you enjoy it and I hope you share it. If you want to get in touch with me, follow us on Instagram at what’s good dough. Remember to always what’s good dough? What's happening? What's good dough? It's your boy Eidref. How y'all doing? How y'all doing? I'm doing great in case any of you were wondering. Thanks. Today we have Ryan and Christina from Pizza Squared over in San Francisco, California. I love it. They do square pizzas. Love it. Hopefully, you all can learn a bunch from this power couple who manages multiple businesses, who have had some restaurant experience but never pizza. We talk about the struggles, the grind, the result, the work in progress, the dream. Hope y'all enjoy the show. Please let me know what's good dough. Hopping on today, I really appreciate it.

Christina: Thank you for having us.

Eidref: Yeah, of course. Thank you. We were just talking about the Coronavirus. We can go into your story. Let's just you know, keep the flow going. There's really no structure. But yeah, y'all said you're hanging in there surviving. How is everything?

Christina: You know, we've always been takeout and delivery. That's been our concept. So you know, we do not compare ourselves with sit down restaurants. You know, we're doing okay. Business has slumped a little bit, but I feel like you know, everything's moving back, opening back up a little bit now. So we are seeing a little uptick in volume. In the past couple of weeks, almost a month now it's been better.

Eidref: That's good to hear. That's a tear. I can imagine the last couple of months. Do you have any sleepless nights or anything like that?

Wow. I mean wow. My conversation with chef Nora Haron was intimidating and insightful. I was so nervous talking to a woman who after speaking with, I now look up to.

SF friends, she is the chef and partner of Local Kitchen, a black owned business. She has put her blood sweat and tears in the food industry and just keeps rising, achieving unprecedented heights. It appears that there is no stop for this woman.

As we celebrate Juneteenth, I'd like to share a quote I read today. "Juneteenth is a reminder that we must continue to engage in self-examination, to educate ourselves, and to demonstrate respect and allyship to all we encounter both in our personal and professional lives." - Dr. Wakayama.

Find out more about this woman's amazing journey.

@localkitchensf

@nora_haron

@noraharon_oak

Full Transcript

Nora: Be laser focused. You know, this is what you want go get it. Set up those little goals to get to those big goals you know. Things are not going to happen overnight and you keep at it always be on hashtag beast mode.

Eidref: Thank you so much for tuning in to the What's Good Dough podcast. I hope you enjoy it and I hope you share it. If you want to get in touch with me, follow us on Instagram at What’s Good Dough. And remember to always ask, what’s good dough? What's happening what's good dough? It's your boy Eidref. How are y'all doing today? I am doing great in case any of you are asking. I am very, very, very excited to release this episode. I worked tirelessly to get this out. To be truthfully honest with everyone, this was a very long episode that I cut down to about 45 minutes. And I need you to let me know. Do you want longer content? This length of content or shorter content? So far, we've been averaging about 40 to 50 minutes per show. I wouldn't say average because I didn't calculate it myself. But that's how it feels so forgive the bias. But yeah, comment on Instagram, rate us on Apple podcasts, let me know so that I can create a show for you. But other than that, this is an amazing episode. Please listen to everything. That's all I can really say because there are so many nuggets in this. Please enjoy the show. And let me know what's good dough. You have such an amazing journey. And I think one of the questions I always ask here is, where did the love for pizza come from? But you know, clearly you have a deeper relationship with just food in general. Let's talk about how that drives.

Nora: Yeah, I was told that my food was too ethnic.

Eidref: Whoa.

Nora: And so…

Eidref: Those words exactly?

Nora: This is how it happened. We don't mean to sound racist, but your food is too ethnic for us.

Eidref: Bam. What the hell?

Nora: Yeah. So you asked me what was the drive; that was to drive. So when the opportunity came at local, you know, I was hesitant at first honestly about this pizza the deal. Because the burning desire to still focus on my food was still very strong. Then I said to myself, who am I to distance? I mean, I have a bre

Pollara pizzeriaa is THE place to go to try some amazing pizza al talgio in the Bay Area. Never tried pizza al talgio? Don't worry its not the most popular style of pizza, YET. It is a mind F. It tricks your mind because how it looks is deceptive to how it tastes, but in a good way. Its also, in my opinion, the most ideal pizza for delivery.

Jon and Kayta are the owners of Dopo in Oakland and the newly opened Pollara Pizzeria. While its not the most ideal time to start a restaurant, I'm confident in their ability to take on pizza al talgio and that their restaurant will outlive this pandemic. Listen in on the podcast and learn more about pizza. If you have time, check them out! You won't regret it.

Full Transcript

Address: 1788 Fourth St, Berkeley, CA 94710

Phone: (510) 529-4548

Website

IG@PollaraPizzeria

Wow! What a great episode that talks about finding investors, using Instagram as a platform to grow your business and build a following by exchanging food?! #mealbarter. On this episode, Gabriele from unregularpizza talks more about his take on Roman style pizza and starting a restaurant in NYC!

Follow him on IG@unregularpizza

Full Transcript Here

What is it like to live the life of a pizza instagramer! Meet George. He reviews pizza places in the greater Bay Area and beyond. He is a philanthropist, who gives back to his community, both his IG community and local community through the SF-Marin Food bank. Overall he is a great guy. Check out his website, follow him on IG, and reach out to him if you need help with social media strategy!

This podcast is about some of the great pieces of information I was able to collect from Pizza Today's Virtual Pizza Expo. The videos/talks were so useful to me as an aspiring restaurant owner and pizza lover. If you want to make pizza at home, start a pizza business, or grow your pizza restaurant, check this podcast out and check out Pizza Today

Transcript

My promise is to release a new podcast every two weeks! To get me going, I did a short solo cast where I talk about adapting your pizza business to these unprecedented times by providing value, and and offering new menu items to go! We also talk about free online resources to improve your pizza!

Pizza's mentioned:

A Slice of New York

Pizza Flora

State of Mind Public House

Tony Gemignani

Scott's Pizza Tours

Pizza Today

I talk with World Pizza Champ and Co Founder of State of Mind Public House, Lars Smith and we do a deep dive on his amazing story! Its one crazy ride!

State of Mind

IG

Full Transcript Here

Eidref: What's happening? What's good dough? It's your boy Easy with the What's Good Dough podcast. Thank you very much for tuning in today to episode number five, which is going to be the last episode of the season. Thank you very much for listening through. If this is the first episode you're tuning into, thank you very much, you chose a great one. And I do encourage you to listen to all of the episodes. It doesn't have to be in order. But I do want to say, if you listen to them in order, it might help a little bit with the first three episodes. Each episode is a little bit different in style. The first episode is a solo podcast of me going over my experiences, and also kind of introducing A Slice of New York one time. The next two episodes are the interview of A Slice of New York and I went ahead and broke that down into two 30 minute segments. But if you think that it would make sense to have a longer episode, one longer episode, let me know. And then the next episode, I'm talking but grabbing little snippets of the interview I had with le pizzeria. And essentially, you know, this episode is going to be full interview only, except we only planned for it to be a shorter one. So really just let me know what style of podcast you my listener, enjoy and I will try to cater to your needs. Thank you very much for tuning in. If you haven't already been to A State of Mind Public House, please, please, please do check it out in Los Gatos, you will not be disappointed. Enjoy the show. Thanks. Thank you so much for taking the call today. I know you are a busy guy with your popping restaurant and you know your pizza competition life.

Lars: You know, I've been lucky to have a lot of mentors and people that have helped me out along the way. So it only makes sense to give back right? We're only as good as we give back.

Eidref: That's beautiful. That's beautiful. When you say mentors.

Lars: We get into this business and it kind of turns into like a family because you spend more time in the restaurant than you do at home for the most part. Particularly like coming up in the business. But I worked for pizza my heart for years and years and years, I was really lucky to have some great mentors there that I still keep in touch with. And, other people like John Arena and Tony Geminiani are there's just really wonderful people that have always been able to give me advice and free information, recipes, things like that. So it's important to me to be able to give back and spread the good word.

Eidref: From my short time in the pizza industry, I've only been in here for about a year and a half to two. But the people that I have met are very giving. I ate at a pizza restaurant downtown that just opened up fairly recently. And the head chef amazing guy talked to me while he was you know, busy making pizzas, and he even offered to share his starter with me. He's like, yeah, just come by and pick some up. And I'm like, yo, you are so cool. And I'm never gonna forget that.

https://www.lapizzeriacampbell.com/

https://www.facebook.com/LaPizzeriaCampbell/

Full Transcription

Eidref: Thank you so much for tuning in to the What’s Good Though Podcast. I hope you enjoy it and I hope you share it. If you want to get in touch with me, follow us on Instagram @what’sgoodthough. But remember to always ask what's good though. What’s happening, what’s good though? This is the What's Good Though podcast with your host Eidref and I am going to be doing a special type of interview today. We are going to do mainly a solo cast. And I'm going to go ahead and get snippets from the Interview with Chef Antonella from la pizzeria in Campbell. She is an amazing woman, cranking out great pizza, and a fine establishment here in Campbell, California. I think that her pizza is amazing. And the reason why I wanted to interview her was because of the balance that I saw; the amazing deliciousness balance in the pizzas that we tried. Her pizza was light. Her pizza was soft, and it was most importantly flavorful. And I could just tell that there was something special about this pizzeria over here. I really think it was her experiences as a child that allowed her to just be the creative chef that she is today.

Antonella: And I grew up always thinking about food, because I love to eat. And I was born with that. It’s in my DNA. And since when I was little on summer vacation, I really liked it to go to the fresh market and do the grocery for my mother. And I was pretty good. I was able to understand when it was fresh, things that they weren't fresh and picking up. And that was my passion.

Eidref: I mean, this woman grew up in Italy, the heart of delicious Italian food, really. And she grew up in Rome, figuring out like, at an early stage that fresh makes a huge difference. And that's something I'm learning over time. I've been eating at more and more restaurants. And what I'm breaking down is that people who use fresh ingredients, the best products that they can grab, the simpler the food, the better. And they really just use the ingredients to do the talking and I think that's something that chef Antonella really has just figured out and is you know making a killing on at her restaurant.

Antonella: Because I think we have the best ingredients in the world. And I think it is possible because the shape of Italy is a particular and it's like a boat and we started with the Alps and so the Alps and the mountains. You have cheese, you have a good meat, and then you go down you have also porcine national which in the Tuscan area and then the central area. And then, you go down the south, you have a nicer seafood then.

Work Co-ops- Treat your employees right, and they will take care of the business you started forever.

ASONY

IG

Learn more about Co-Ops here

See a throwback of Kirk with Tony Gemignani

Part two of the interview with Kirk from ASONY is all about employee co-ops. Here we talk about how employees are the foundation of a prosperous business. Business owners can learn from ASONY's success and the deep investment they make in the people who make their business run. We also touch on why those who serve up the best ___(anything) should look into some type of succession plan, whether its through a co-op or not, to keep your product alive.

Full Transcript Here

Eidref: What's happening? What's good dough? Thank you very much for tuning in to another episode of the what's good dough podcast. This is part two of a conversation I had with Kirk, the founder of A Slice of New York. This episode is going to be talking a lot more about employee pull ups. What are they? Are they good for employees? Are they good for restaurant owners? We are going to let you the listener decide. But from what we talked about, personally, I think it's a great idea. I love the idea of a succession plan and that if I create something amazing, then I would want that legacy to continue. So without further ado, please enjoy the show and let me know what you think. You guys do like a day where pizzas are half off?

Kirk: Yeah, so called Pizza Academy.

Eidref: Pizza Academy.

Kirk: Yeah, Pizza Academy. That's like kind of like our training day.

Eidref: You do training days?

Kirk: We're closed Mondays. We've been closed Mondays for over 12 years.

Eidref: Okay.

Kirk: We closed Mondays early on. First we were open Seven days and we didn't even have hours when we first opened, I didn't post any hours.

Eidref: Yeah.

Kirk: My longest day I was open till 4am.

Eidref: Oh, wow.

Kirk: Personally, I was there.